Thursday, August 14, 2008

Home again.

You know, it seemed like such a good idea to go for a wander around the countryside with no intenet access for a few weeks. It was, indeed, very pleasant apart from the British weather. When we say the weather is 'changeable', we don't mean by the day. We mean by the minute. Brilliant sunshine can turn into a thunderstorm in moments, so it's a good thing I never go anywhere without a hat.

Anyway, I have no astounding successes to report (which you must have guessed by now or there'd be a photo in this post) but I still have a lot to go through.

One thing I had forgotten about was spam. It turns up every day and I delete it as it comes in if I'm at the computer. Overnight I can expect to get about 20-30 spams, hardly enough to be troubled about. Those that appear while I'm at the computer get wiped at once so I couldn't say for sure how many appear daily.

Over a period of weeks they amass to several thousand! Buried in there are ones I actually want to read but for every good one there are at least a hundred duds! Phishing mails for banks I don't have accounts with, offers of marriage from Russian women (thanks, but I don't speak Russian so it just wouldn't work out), PayPal has apparently frozen my account fourteen times even though there's currently nothing in it, and if I took all those offers to expand my trouser bits I could use the damn thing as a scarf.

Well, I can see how they make money with them. They send millions and they only need a few gullible idiots to make it worthwhile. What I don't get are the ones that have only one line, usually a quote from a book. No link, no attached virus-riddled software, nothing. What are those? Is there a class of spammer now that just wants to be as much of a pain in the backside as possible, without all that bother of selling junk?

Anyway, I have still to clear them all so if you have an email in there, be patient. I'll find it. Eventually.

First, some sleep...